One of the IDA's primary goals is to develop a robust community of documentary filmmakers and supporters. To further this effort, each month we'll be spotlighting a group of new(ish) members in the Welcome New Members column.

If you're a new member and would like to be included (or an "old" member who hasn't been featured yet), please send your bio (250 words max) to associate editor Tamara Krinsky at krinskydoc@ca.rr.com. You must include "Welcome New Members" and your name in the subject line of the e-mail. Bios should focus on your filmmaking background, interests, experiences, education, accomplishments, etc. If you're a student, tell us about where you're studying. If you're a film fan, tell us what you love about documentaries. Please also include the city, state and country in which you currently reside.

Producer/Editor Lillian E. Benson (Encino, CA) was nominated for an Emmy for her work on the landmark Civil Rights series Eyes on the Prize II. She is a veteran editor and the first African-American female member of American Cinema Editors, an honorary society of film editors. Benson has edited feature films, television series and numerous documentaries for HBO, CNN, A&E and PBS, most recently Wounded Knee, the last episode of the American Experience series We Shall Remain. Benson made her directorial debut in 2004 on All Our Sons-- Fallen Heroes of 9/11, a documentary about the firefighters of color who died at the World Trade Center. Benson is co-owner of the Santa Monica-based editorial service, Lightwave Pictures.

Danielle Bernstein (New York, NY) is a New York-based filmmaker from Atlanta, Georgia. She attended the School of the Museum of Fine arts and graduated in 2006, the same year she helped found the production company Clear Films and began working as co-director/producer/cinematographer of the award-winning documentary When Clouds Clear. She is currently producing another documentary, Mothers of a Nation, and designing comprehensive outreach models for three social justice films including Mothers of a Nation, When Clouds Clear and Vessel. When Clouds Clear is about a small town trying to protect their land from mining companies. Mothers of a Nation addresses womens' rights in Uganda, HIV and empowerment through gardening. Vessel follows the story of a ship that administers abortions in international waters to women who live in countries where it is illegal. Bernstein is committed to working on projects that concentrate on creatively increasing awareness, visible change and empowerment to both subjects and audience. Her focus in documentary is inspired by the belief that a little bit can go a very long way. Says Bernstein, “It is a really exciting time for media art and film. The market is rapidly changing. More and more filmmakers are working to make the message if their work into a movement and we are finally starting to see change actually taking place in communities as well as governments as a result.”

Dori Berinstein (New York, NY) is an award-winning director, producer and writer of film, theater and television. Gotta Dance (Tribeca ’08), about the first-ever, senior citizen hip-hop dance team for the New Jersey Nets, is set for a summer ’09 release. (Audience Award Winner – Palm Beach Int’l Film Festival; Best Documentary – The Floating Film Festival). Bernstein is adapting the film into a Broadway Musical. Some Assembly Required, (SXSW ’08), directed and produced by Berinstein, chronicles kids nationwide competing in a national toy invention competition (Fall ’09 release and Int’l Family Film Festival Best Documentary Winner). Berinstein also directed, produced and wrote Showbusiness: The Road To Broadway (Tribeca ’06), about the passion, exhilaration, drama, sweat and high-stakes creative and financial risk of four new Broadway musicals. (2007 IDA Best Documentary Finalist and Grand Jury Award – Best Documentary Feature, The Florida Film Festival). Berinstein is a three-time Tony-winning Broadway producer. Her productions include Legally Blonde: The Musical, Thoroughly Modern Millie (Tony Award), Liam Neeson and Laura Linney in The Crucible, Gary Sinise in One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest (Tony Award), Fool Moon (Tony Award), Flower Drum Song and Golden Child. Berinstein is the 2009 recipient of Broadway’s Robert Whitehead Award for "Outstanding Achievement in Commercial Theatre Producing’. She executive-produced and/or supervised over 50 feature, special f/x and/or animated productions, including Isaac Mizrahi’s award-winning documentary Unzipped, Dirty Dancing and Jim Henson’s Muppetvision 3-D.

Sharon Liese (Overland Park, KS) turned a homespun project filming 12 girls’ experiences throughout high school into a nationally viewed series that opened a dialogue between parents and their teenage daughters. A single mother, Liese felt others would benefit from an inside view of the dramatic transformation of the girls into women. She convinced her conservative Midwest school district to allow her unprecedented access to her daughter’s high school and convinced the other girls and their parents to allow her access to situations like the hospital room where one of the girls was having brain surgery. High School Confidential premiered on WE tv. She is currently developing a documentary about high school kids from eight different countries. She is looking to collaborate with filmmakers in various countries so that each country can be seen through an indigenous lens. Sharon@HerizonProductions.com

Feizel Mamdoo (Johannesburg, South Africa) is a South African filmmaker who became associated with IDA in 2007 when he penned an article for Documentary magazine as inaugural director of the People to People International Documentary Conference in Johannesburg. Mamdoo entered the local film and television production industry as opportunities opened up for black South Africans in the early 1990s. He devoted himself in the 15 years before that to the struggle for democracy in South Africa. Mamdoo practices as a film director, producer and writer. He is regarded among the forerunners of establishing "creative documentary" as a genre in South Africa, particularly with What Happened to Mbuyisa?, which he produced and directed to wide acclaim in 1998. Among his work is a two-part documentary based on the autobiographies of the noted South African writer Es'kia Mphahlele. In 2000 he wrote and directed the 20-minute Mainland to Island, an "essay" on issues of African representation in film with reference to the Zanzibar International Film Festival. It was selected to open The House of World Cultures "Film Festivals of the World" program in Germany in 2001. In 1997 and '98, Mamdoo wrote, directed and produced In Your Face, a 9 x 15 minute documentary series on youth transition to adulthood for the SABC. This series represented his first experiments in the expression of film language. Among his commissioned work for corporate clients are the public launch videos for the African Union in 2002 and the African Union SA-Mali project in 2003 to preserve the historic Timbuktu manuscripts. Mamdoo has most recently completed Of Journey, Home and Treasure, a feature documentary on Indian–African relations and identity issues in South Africa, framed within the mystical concepts of Rumi. Mamdoo has wide interests in arts and culture, including community heritage reclamation. He is a founder of The Fietas Festival, a community cultural initiative to reclaim the heritage of his birthplace, Vrededorp/Pageview, which was destroyed by forced removals under the Group Areas Act of apartheid.

Producer Dennis Mohr (Toronto, Ontario, Canada) has over ten years of development and production experience in film, television and new media. He has been employed as a Special Consultant for the Miramax-Dimension Films and Ten Thirteen Productions’ feature film The World of Ted Serios, the true story of a hard-living ex-bellhop from Chicago who claimed to be able to project his thoughts onto Polaroid film. His most recent feature documentary, Remembering Arthur, produced for Bravo!, TVOntario and the National Film Board of Canada, about Canadian artist and filmmaker Arthur Lipsett, garnered numerous accolades during the film’s world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2006, including screenings at the Museum of Modern Art in New York in 2007. Mohr is currently in production on his latest documentary, Disfarmer: A Portrait of America, about eccentric rural American portrait photographer, Mike Disfarmer, his influence on the Manhattan art world and the legacy he left behind in his hometown of Heber Springs, Arkansas. Mohr is also employed by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation in Toronto as a broadcast automation technician and specialist. In addition to IDA, he is a member of the Society of Motion Picture Television Engineers (SMPTE), the Canadian Media Guild (CMG) and the Documentary Organization of Canada (DOC).  http://www.linkedin.com/in/dennismohr